


My Beautiful Wife

by Raikana



Series: Moonlight Boys [6]
Category: No Fandom, Original Work
Genre: Arranged Marriage, Childbirth, F/M, Man not as emotionless as he pretends to be, Man really loves his wife, POV First Person, Past Tense, Present Tense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-21
Updated: 2019-01-21
Packaged: 2019-10-13 15:15:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17490323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raikana/pseuds/Raikana
Summary: Tarou's mind wanders as he sits with his wife, Haruka, during the birth of their first child.





	My Beautiful Wife

**Author's Note:**

> I dunno. I had been reading about some older practices surrounding childbirth in Japan and this happened. May not be completely factual, but I liked the story well enough.

I sit next to my beautiful wife and give her a small smile as I reach up with one hand to wipe the sweat from her forehead. She doesn’t look back. Instead, she tightens her grip on my hand, curling in on herself as a pained grunt escapes her red lips. Her normally bouncy waves lay flat against her head for once, stuck down by hours of sweat. When she finally falls back against the pile of pillows behind her, I bring her fingers up to my face and gently kiss her knuckles.

We haven’t been married for very long, but I already can’t imagine my life without her. My parents introduced me to her only a few days after I graduated from school. I had known for a number of years that my parents had an arrangement with the Fujimoto family, but I hadn’t seen their daughter until my engagement party. Some of my friends from school didn’t have engagement parties or arranged marriages. Some of them were going on to high school and were already deciding which girls they’d like to date and maybe marry. But not the only son of Osamu Yamada, owner of the Yamada Group.

Haruka and I were married a matter of months after we were engaged, in a very traditional ceremony. I had only seen her a handful of times before we married, and always under the watchful eyes of both our parents, but I thought she was beautiful from the moment I saw her at the engagement party in her brightly colored kimono with the sleeves hanging down to her ankles and the modest pearl earrings peeking out from behind her black, wavy hair. She smiled at me and I immediately felt weak in the knees. I was thankful for the loose hakama that I wore that day because, once I was kneeling, the folds of the fabric concealed my erection from her and from our parents.

I smile sadly down at her as she curls in on herself once again, the large swell of her stomach obscuring my view of her privates, but the doctor sitting at the foot of our bed is staring intently between her legs, standing up every so often and leaning over the bed to check something down there. I trust him with not just my life, but the lives of my wife and my unborn child. I know that medicine has advanced considerably since my father was born, or even since  _ I _ was born, but I was still worry that something will go wrong and I’ll lose both of them. I don’t want to marry another woman and start over again. I love Haruka too much. Though I can’t remember if I’ve ever told her that. I’m not sure I’d even be able to perform for another woman after spending so many nights with Haruka, trying to ensure my family line.

I smile down at her again as she looks up at me with her tired eyes and I reach for the nightstand to pick up the paper cup full of ice, holding it to her lips. I see a glimmer of gratitude reflected in her deep brown eyes as she sucks an ice cube into her mouth, rolling it around her tongue with a soft moan. I set the cup down and pull out another piece of ice, running it across her sweaty brow and flushed cheeks as it slowly melts in my hands, the cool water running down her face toward her ears.

I glance down her body as the doctor moves up between her legs again, reaching forward to touch her most private place. I wish that we didn’t need a doctor for this, that it could be just me and my wife, but I don’t know how to deliver a child, so I need to let this other man touch my wife in ways that only  _ I’m _ permitted to touch her normally. 

I hear a tired squeak and looked up to see a deeper flush spread across her face as her nipples grow hard under her nightgown. The doctor must have brushed across something sensitive. I feel my own cheeks grow warm as I figure out what it probably was. Haruka had always had a rather sensitive...nub above her privates. I could never forget the way she whined and squirmed the first time I had touched it, wondering what it was. I’m still not sure exactly what it was, but I know that when I repeatedly touch and rub it, she acts like I do when I spill my seed in her and her privates suddenly get very wet. She’s told me she liked it, so I’ve started doing it every time we made love.

I look down at her flushed face again as I dig another ice cube from the cup and rub it across her warm skin. I wonder if she’s been as frustrated as I have these last six months. As soon as we found out she was expecting, I stopped making love to her. I’ve heard of some couples who stopped sleeping in the same bed once they conceived and I asked Haruka if she wanted her own room. She refused so I had to sleep beside her warm, round body every night but I couldn’t do anything more than just hold her close. Most nights I had to get up and sneak into the bathroom after she fell asleep, just so I could relieve myself without molesting my sleeping wife. Only after I was sated could I curl up along her back and fall asleep with my arm draped over our child.

I’ll have to keep from touching her after the birth, too. From what my father has told me, a man isn’t supposed to touch his wife  _ that _ way until after their child is weaned. I sigh to myself as I imagine all those lonely nights stretching out in front of me. At least once our child is weaned, I’ll be able to make love to her again. In fact, I’m expected to. If this child is a girl, we’ll have to try again for a boy. And even if it’s a boy, we’ll be expected to try for another boy, in case our first child doesn’t survive to adulthood or in case he is somehow incapable of taking over the family business.

She tenses up next to me again, her shoulders lifting off the pillow as more contractions wrack her body. I reach out with my free hand to cup the back of her neck, trying to support her as she tries to push our infant out of her body. I know it’s natural and other women have done it for hundreds, thousands of years, but when I remember how small and tight she was the first time we made love, I find it hard to believe that a child could fit through there. I lean back for a moment, hoping to catch a glimpse past her stomach, but she pulls me back to her side with a shake of her head, tendrils of damp hair slapping my hand. I shuffle a bit closer to her on the bed and lean in to kiss her cheek, murmuring comforting noises in her ear. I want to do so much more, but with the doctor watching us, I didn’t think it is appropriate. Even if he is currently seeing my wife in a way I don’t think I ever will. I’m not sure if I’m glad that I won’t see her privates torn apart by a child or disappointed that I won’t be the first man to touch my own child.

I hear Haruka let out a high-pitched, keening whine and I watch with deep concern as her face contorts into a look of extreme pain and her hand squeezes mine tighter. I use my free hand to gently stroke her white knuckles, drawing my lower lip between my teeth to worry at it. The doctor gets out of his chair again and rests one knee on the edge of the bed as he leans close to her, nodding solemnly. “It won’t be much longer,” he tells us, his deep voice rumbling in his chest.

I give Haruka a small smile, my lip still caught between my teeth as I pat her hand. I’m not even sure she sees me, but I hope she heard the doctor and takes as much hope from his words as I did. It won’t be much longer. Soon my wife will no longer be in pain. Soon I’ll be holding our child while she rests. She’s been suffering in this bed for hours already. I overheard part of a conversation she had with her mother a month or so ago where her mother said that some women are in labor for up to a whole day before giving birth. It’s been hard enough to watch her suffer for these last six hours, I can’t imagine what kind of agony she’d be in if she had to deal with this for a whole day. Perhaps that’s why some women insist on sleeping in a different room when they get pregnant. Maybe they just don’t want to see their husbands, the men who caused them so much pain, until they need to in order to ensure another child. I wonder if Haruka will feel the same way about me now. I wouldn’t blame her if she did.

I gently lower her head to the pillows again before I pull my hand out from behind her neck to wipe off her face again. “You’re doing well,” I tell her, leaning down to whisper in her ear. She turns her head toward me and I see the bone-deep weariness written in every line of her face before her mouth stretches in a tired smile, making her look more like the gorgeous young woman I married. I glance back at the doctor, busy between her legs, no doubt focusing on the child coming into this world, and I leaned down to give her a quick kiss on the lips, my face feeling as warm as hers when I pulled away. She smiles at me again before another wave of pain washes over her face. I smile back at her, my insides tearing apart as I watch her suffer for me, for my family, for our child.

I finally glance up from my wife’s face as I heard a wet noise coming from between her legs, after what felt like an eternity of holding her hand and soothing her through intense waves of pain. I look back at her as she collapses onto the pillows and draws in a deep, cleansing breath. Her grip on my hand loosens and I turn to look back at the doctor, still busy between her legs, but I catch a brief glimpse of the bloody mess on our bed and I lock my eyes on her face again, not willing to face the mysterious and messy aftermath of a human birth. Instead, I lean over her and stroke her face and hair with both my hands, murmuring quiet words of encouragement to her as I hear the metallic snip of scissors and I hear, for the first time ever, the thin wail of my child’s voice. Our child’s voice.

I hear more cries rising over the sounds of the doctor working busily on something. By the fifth cry, I hear the wail moving closer. The doctor steps up next to my wife, cradling a tiny infant in his arms, its mouth open wide and its eyes squeezed shut as it cries. He looks down at me. “Please expose her breasts,” he tells me and my face warms again as my hands reach out to obey. I pull apart the bow on the front of her nightgown and draw the two sides down and out to expose both her heavy breasts to his eyes. I’m sure he must see many pairs of breasts every day, but I can’t help but be jealous to see him looking at my wife’s chest. He bends over and gently lowers the wailing infant onto my wife’s chest before moving back between her legs. To clean up the blood, I hope.

She reached up with one trembling hand to stroke our child’s wet, black hair as the small form squirmed across her chest to latch onto a nipple. I smile at the sight and I reach down to shift the baby into a better position, catching a glimpse between his legs as I lift him away momentarily. I set him back down along her chest, his mouth still latched firmly onto her rosy nipple, and watch as his tiny fists clutch the fabric of her nightgown, clinging to her as he feeds.

She wraps one arm around his tiny form, cradling him close as I get off the bed to fetch the small blanket her mother made for us. I carry it back to her and climb into bed next to her, lifting her arm away just long enough to drape the blanket over his small body, then setting her hand on his back again. The doctor continues working between her legs as she relaxes on the bed, but I ignore him as I lean over to give her a tender kiss on the lips, tasting her sweat and my blood, the feeling of her soft lips stirring things inside me, some of which should  _ not _ be stirring. I pull away and stare into her liquid brown eyes from mere inches away, smiling gently at my beautiful wife. “Thank you, Haruka. I love you.”


End file.
